Hiv Error Leaves Scar On Family

A Kissimmee Man Tries To Overcome The Agony Of A Misdiagnosis. He Was Told He Was Going To Die Of Aids, But The Test Was Wrong.

April 5, 1995|By Mike Oliver of The Sentinel Staff

When Ron Jones' supervisor told him he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, Jones broke down and cried like a baby. At 6 feet 1 inch tall and 250 pounds, Jones was hale and hearty, and happily married.

Nineteen months later, the Kissimmee man requested another test and found out the original test results had been wrong: He wasn't HIV positive. He wasn't going to die the agonizing death of an AIDS patient after all.

He was jubilant - but also angry at having been handed an unjustified ''death sentence.''

He and his wife, Pam, had made a will. He had given up playing his favorite sport. The couple had agonized over how to tell their 5-year-old daughter and had worried about the stigma with which she would have to live.

Pam began to question her husband's fidelity, and he resented her doubts. They went on a miserably sad ''last family vacation.''

In a case that went to the Florida Supreme Court, the Joneses tried but failed last month to win monetary damages. Because of the stigma associated with AIDS, they had shielded their identities throughout their lawsuit, referring to themselves in court papers only as plaintiffs R.J. and P.J.

Even now, with the threat of AIDS gone and the litigation over, they are worried about the effect on their youngest child, now 11. They hope to put the whole thing behind them soon.

Pam Jones said she wouldn't want anybody to go through what they did.

''There's a scar there that won't go away,'' she said.

On March 11, 1989, Ron Jones was working as a laboratory technician at Humana Hospital-Lucerne (now Columbia Park Medical Center) when he accidentally stuck himself with a needle he had used to draw blood from an HIV-positive patient.

Following procedure, Jones filled out a report and had his own blood drawn that same day for testing.

That first test is designed to establish a base line for comparison to later tests that might indicate a possible infection. Blood drawn the same day as a needle accident will not show HIV from that exposure.

So Jones was floored when that first test came back 2 1/2 weeks later saying he was HIV positive.

It wasn't from the March 11 incident, so what could have caused it? He began to wonder about previous encounters in the hospital with tainted blood. He wondered about sexual contacts he had before his marriage more than six years earlier. He questioned the test but was assured of its reliability.

Pam Jones, who then was a laboratory technician for another hospital, awoke on March 30, 1989, and she noticed her husband sitting at the end of the bed, a paper in his hand.

''I had just worked a double shift and was asleep,'' she recalled recently. ''I looked at this piece of paper, and it said HIV positive. . . . The most horrible thing of it all was that Ron told me not to tell anyone.''

Pam said that, though she truly believed her husband had been faithful to her, doubt began gnawing at her. She never voiced her feelings outright, but ''there were innuendos.''

''I still feel guilty about that,'' she said.

''Pam knew where I was all the time,'' Ron said. ''I never stayed out. To have doubts - that annoyed me. But I understood her position.''

The family went on a cruise, a sort of last family vacation. Pam remembers they fought the whole time.

Ron continued to work. He was depressed but remembers how things changed after his hospital supervisor took him into her office and told him it was time to ''understand that death was certain.''

''I felt better after that because, I guess, I really came to accept it,'' he said.

Meanwhile, he was being checked periodically for a drop in the type of white blood cells affected by HIV. A healthy person has a count of about 1,000 for the blood cells, known as CD-4 cells, while a count of 200 in an HIV-infected person indicates the disease is progressing rapidly.

Results from his first test in April 1989 showed a count of 964, which his doctor described in a letter as ''impressive.'' His second test showed a count of 1,140, which the doctor called ''fantastic.''

Then, in May 1990, the count came back at 772. While his doctor said that was normal, Ron began to worry.

But the next test showed the count was up to 1,160. Ron and Pam began to wonder.

Ron felt fine. ''I'm going, 'Wait a minute,' '' he recalled.

''One of the symptoms is weight loss,'' his wife said, ''but he was getting fatter.''

Because all the tests were strictly limited to counting CD-4 cells, they had never confirmed one way or another the presence of HIV.

Pam finally drew blood from Ron herself and sent it to a lab for an HIV test. It came back negative. Ron immediately saw a doctor, who confirmed he was not HIV positive.

''I prayed and thanked God for giving us a second chance,'' Pam said. ''I was walking on water. I was elated.

''But when I came down, I was angry.''

In retrospect, Ron said, he would have demanded an earlier retest and not put so much faith in others' assertions that the original blood work was good.

His wife thinks every cloud has a silver lining; the experience has made her more compassionate toward those with AIDS.

''I was like everybody else - I thought of HIV like leprosy,'' said Pam, who now works in a doctor's office. ''Now, I don't shy away. I'm not afraid to touch an HIV patient or have them breathe on me.''

Ron still works at the hospital. And he has revived his passion for playing recreational basketball. After the faulty blood test, he had quit playing for fear of cutting himself while playing - such as Magic Johnson - even though he knew, as a medical technician, that bleeding on a ball court would not spread the virus.

He's also made a major change in his daily routine.

''I don't say my prayers at night anymore,'' he said. ''I now say them in the morning.''